The Bell Jar has proved to be a fine subject for the Reading group. This has been one of the most eventful months so far. But we've had so much to talk about that I fear we've rather neglected the book itself; as so often happens in any discussion of Plath, her life has dominated. That's perhaps inevitable, and certainly fascinating – but for this last post, I'd like to attempt to redress the balance, and talk about Plath's words. Specifically, the often under-reported fact that many of them are hilarious.

"I was surprised at how readable it was – I expected it to be terribly gloomy and full of tortured prose. But it was a beautiful, lucid read full of dark comedy and the overall effect was me to think that Esther (and by extension Plath) wasn't mad at all, but those around her were."

"Yes there's a humour that pervades the whole text. Reading it, no matter what her depression, Esther made me laugh and I wanted to be her friend – rare, to find a character like that. I could imagine her whispering her commentaries on ridiculous people into my ear and us laughing together, yes probably looking quite mad. I think that is the book's saving grace, what stops [it] from sinking, sinking, as Esther sinks. She [is] just so biting; on describing the world around her, she hits the bullseye every time."

"I read this many years ago and I remember telling a friend that I thought bits of it were funny. He was shocked and his look of utter contempt made me feel as if I must have completely misunderstood the whole book."

Humour is subjective. I'm sure there are plenty of people who don't find certain passages in The Bell Jar as amusing as I do. Yet, I'm still sure it's wherearemyglasses' friend who misunderstood the book.

It's a goldmine for one-liners, for a start. "If you expect nothing from anybody, you're never disappointed," is so good it's passed into cliche. So too has: "If neurotic is wanting two mutually exclusive things at one and the same time, then I'm neurotic as hell."

OK, those phrases reveal a certain bleakness of outlook – but horror and comedy are frequently good companions. Possibly the funniest passage in the book comes when Esther is considering different methods of suicide: "The trouble about jumping was that if you didn't pick the right number of stories, you might still be alive when you hit bottom."

Yes, that might be an issue.

Elsewhere, there's plenty of more straightforward comedy. Is there anyone, for instance, who didn't laugh when everyone on placement came down with such exuberantly described food poisoning? Or at the acuity of Esther's remark: "There is nothing like puking with somebody to make you into old friends"?

In fact, although it also has frustration, horror and darker shades, most of the depiction of Esther's time in New York is hilarious. There's merciless satire of the queasy glamour of the fashion world (so easily undone by crabmeat), the doe-eyed willingness of her fellow interns to lap up such nonsense, and Esther's own detachment from it. There's also Doreen, a force of nature, dressing gown "the colour of sin", knowing everything, mocking everyone.

Even later, there are moments of high comedy. Literally, in the scene where Esther flies straight down a mountain on skis she has no idea how to control. Like so much of the comedy in the book, her descent is wrapped up in vertiginous horror – but that only heightens the humour when Esther declares she's going to get up and "do it again", and Buddy replies: "No you're not … your leg's broken in two places." Buddy too is a source of perpetual comedy; from his turkey-gizzard manhood to his dreadful fear that he drives women to suicide, his awfulness is set down with sardonic glee.

On the subject of awfulness, there's also Esther's poor mother, a source of ridicule and comedy even when Esther is in her suicidal depths: snoring, misunderstanding everything, spouting absurdities like: "I knew you'd decide to be all right again." She also allows Esther to act like the ultimate surly teenager:

"Why honey, don't you want to get dressed?"

My mother took care never to tell me to do anything. She would only reason with me sweetly, like one intelligent, mature person with another.

"It's almost three in the afternoon."

"I'm writing a novel," I said. "I haven't got time to change into this and change into that."

Sylvia Plath travelled to New York City in June 1953 full of anticipation about a guest editorship at Mademoiselle magazine. She was to return home a changed person, as this extract from Andrew Wilson's biography reveals